Tuesday, 22 May 2018

This week Richard Little will give his first lecture as a Visiting Professor with the University of Cumbria. He will draw upon the intellectual icons of the Lake District, both famous and semi forgotten, to explore current trends in the world of work (and capitalism). We will be hosted at the famous home of John Ruskin, in Coniston. More info here.

If you cant make it, then you can hear Prof Little again at our Poetics of Leadership conference in the Lake District, where he will be joined by Prof Jonathan Gosling, Prof Jem Bendell, and many other practitioners and educators of leadership development from around the world. Info here.

Profs Bendell and Little will also be exploring leadership and its development in the face of global dilemmas, in our PGC course, starting with a 4 day residential after the conference. Which involves gazing without shrinking. Info here.

Wednesday, 25 April 2018

IFLAS has been researching and teaching on local currencies, crypto currencies and blockchain since 2014 when our University became the first public University in the world to accept bitcoin. Since then we have always had PhD students studying this area, taking a multidisciplinary approach, drawing upon social theory to explore the implications for the public of a multicurrency future.

We are now seeking new applications for PhD research in this field, to start October 1st 2018. The opportunity is suited to people who work on this topic and could do a PhD part time over 4 or 5 years. They would work alongside a fulltime PhD student who works with the new Lake District Pound, and with Professor Jem Bendell as their supervisor. Most supervision is provided remotely, and so the number of visits to campus during the programme can be negotiated (the July 2019 summer school is obligatory).

There is no funding, but the fees for part time students with UK or EU residency are very competitive (under 2000GBP a year).

If you already have a Masters degree and are interested, please write one page about your idea for your research and your motivation, and send it before May 10th to Professor Jem Bendell (email jem dot cumbria at cumbria dot ac dot uk). If your idea is relevant, then you will hear within a week of initial contact and be invited to submit a formal application before the end of May to enable an October 1st start.

Saturday, 7 April 2018

The
billions of dollars of venture capital pouring into blockchain start-ups over
the past year reflect how people with a serious financial interest in
technology see significant potential in distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Yet the actual use of these technologies for everyday applications is still rare. Some say that it is a passing fad. Others say that blockchains and cryptocurrencies like
bitcoin are dangerous to our financial system, our security and the
environment. How should we navigate this new sector: as innovators, advisors,
regulators, or just as informed citizens?

Deepmind's AI interpretation of Escher's famous hands

In
this concept note, prepared as background for our article for the World
Economic Forum, we explain how approaches to blockchain and cryptocurrency need
to be grounded in a clear appreciation of the relationship between technology
and society. That clarity is important not just for discussions on blockchains
and cryptocurrencies, but for all software technology, as it becomes so
powerful in our lives. We will therefore develop a lens, called “integral
technology,” to assess the positive and negative aspects of any technology and
apply this to recent innovation on the field of distributed ledgers.

When
we hear people comment on blockchain and cryptographic currency being good or
bad, we are often hearing different assumptions about the relationship between
technology and society. So first, let us review the various ways that people
look at that. The Oxford English dictionary defines technology as “The application of
scientific knowledge for practical purposes..." That is different to how
the word is typically used to refer to the “artefacts” - or things - of
technology, such as the arrow head, the mobile handset, blockchain, or nuclear
missile. By describing both “application” and “practical purposes” the
dictionary suggests that technology is best understood as a system of
intentions and outcomes. That system involves people, knowledge, contexts and
the transformations that are involved in creating those artefacts. These are
what we identify as the five aspects of any technological system, which is what
we will mean when we refer to a technology in this concept note. The power of
this systems perspective on technology is that it invites us to consider
further the wider context of politics, financing, iterative redesign processes,
the side effects and finally the values that shape technologies. Which is what
we will do now.

Is Technology Something to Love or Fear?

We
humans attach a great deal of importance to technology because it seems to be
able to meet many of our needs and desires. It brings aspects of our
imagination into physical reality in ways that then reshape our lives and what
we might imagine next. This utility of technology makes selling it very
possible, but also means there is less emphasis given to the costs and
consequences of those desires being met in those ways.

Given
its centrality in civilisation, a range of perspectives on our relationship to
technology have arisen.Some optimists believe any negative
consequences are worth the benefit, and that the march of technology is
synonymous with the march of human progress. This view is called “technological
optimism”. Others believe that technology takes humans further from their natural
state, isolating them from the world, and causing numerous new problems which
often require further technological solutions. These “technological pessimists”
can point to a range of dangerous situations such as nuclear waste, climate
change and antibiotic resistance, to then question the hubris that humanity may
have exhibited in thinking our technology meant we can exert influence on
nature without an eventual response of equivalent impact on ourselves. The German
philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that modern technologies have a quality of
seeking to dominate nature rather than work with it, in ways that stem from - and
contribute to - the illusion that humans are separate agents acting on nature.

Some
of these optimists and pessimists don’t think that we humans have much
influence on what is happening. Such “technological determinism” is the view
that technology can be understood as having a logic of its own and develops as
an unfolding of consciousness in ways that we, our entrepreneurs or our
politicians, will not, in principle, control. Current debates about the merits or risks of
blockchains and cryptocurrencies often echo these perspectives. Some argue it
will change, or even save, the world. Others argue that it will collapse the
financial basis of our nation states. Still others argue that whatever our
view, it IS the future - as if it cannot be stopped.

Counter-posed
to these views on technology has been the “technological neutralist” view which
suggests that technology is neither inherently good or bad for humanity and
therefore needs responsible management to maximise its intended benefits and
minimise its unintended drawbacks. That view is the most widespread in the field
ofScience, Technology and Society (STS) studies. Sociologists have revealed as pure
fiction the apolitical view of technology development as flowing from basic
science, to applied science, development, and commercialization.Instead, a variety of relevant stakeholder
groups compete to influence a new technology and they determine how it becomes
stabilised as an element of society.

Therefore,
despite the pervasiveness of “great man” stories in our culture, technological
innovation is not the result of heroes introducing new ‘technologies’ and
release them into ‘society,’ starting a series of (un)expected impacts. Rather,
innovation is a complex process of “co-construction” in which technology and
society, to the degree that they could even be conceived separately of one
another, negotiate the role of new technological artefacts, alter technology
through resistance, and construct social and technological concepts and
practices.

We
share this perspective on technology. It invites us to see how innovation is a
social process that we can choose to engage in to achieve public goals. We are
not, however, “technology neutralists”, for a few reasons. First, we do not
believe that all technologies have the same level of negative or positive potential
prior to their human control. That is because all kinds of different phenomena exist under the one banner “technology”. For instance, while nuclear fission constantly produces poisons which require millennia of custody, smart decision-making algorithms only impact the world insofar as their decisions are acted upon. Second, we do not assume humanity to be the autonomous agent in our relationship with technology. Rather, we are influenced by the technologies that shape the society we are born into. Canadian philosopher of technology, Professor Andrew Feenberg explains this situation as humans and technology existing in an entangled hierarchy. “Neither society nor technology can be understood in isolation from each other because neither has a stable identity or form” he explains.

For
us, “technological constructivism” is the perspective that technology and
society influence each other in complex ways that cannot be predicted and
therefore require constant vigilance by representatives from all stakeholders
who are directly and indirectly affected. The implication of this perspective
for innovation in blockchain and cryptographic currencies is that the
intentions of innovators and financiers are important to know and influence,
and that wider stakeholder participation in shaping the direction and
governance of the technology is essential. This is the approach that we base
our view of developments in software in general and blockchains, in particular.

The Technological State of the World

Humanity
faces many dilemmas today. Some of these are brought about by our technology,
some are not, and we may hope many can be solved by a sensible use of technology
in future. Climate change is the result of our rapid use of technologies to
burn fossil fuels and tear up forests. Malnutrition is the result of a wide
array of factors, which are difficult to blame on technology, though its
persistence despite the “green revolution” would make technological optimism a questionable position today.

One
field of technology which may be exceptional with regard to regulation and the
lack of it is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which describes the ability of computers to
perceive their environment and determine an appropriate course of action. Narrow forms of AI are already in use. They often confer a tremendous advantage to those who use it well, and its use by
the victorious Trump campaign, and the victorious Leave campaign (of the Brexit
referendum) are raising huge questions about the justice of using people's own
data to manipulate their voting intention. AI systems tend to be very
complicated and sometimes produce unexpected results. But because they save
labour, for example by automatically judging loan applications or driving
vehicles, there is commercial pressure to simply accept the automated decisions
to reduce the costs. As AI is applied to more and more areas of trade, finance,
military and critical infrastructure, the risks and ethical questions
proliferate. There are more intense concerns being expressed recently about more general forms of AI that include capabilities for software to be self-authoring. That does not mean consciousness, nor mimicking consciousness, but that overtime the software could develop itself beyond our understanding or control. It could 'escape' from a laboratory setting, or within specific applications, and disrupt the world through
all our internet-connected systems. Astro-physicist Stephen Hawking said
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of
the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will take off
on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are
limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded."
Some even fear that, a rogue AI might only be disabled by killing the whole
internet. Combined with the resilience of blockchains, which cannot be switched
off at any one place, this possibility is a step closer. This potential existential danger invites a new seriousness about software regulation. But our concern in this concept note is more with the way machines in the service of
powerful organisations are already shaping certain aspects of our lives with little
accountability and that the field of AI is almost completely unregulated.

Introducing the Concept of Integral
Technology

Given
these problems, it is self-evident that humanity needs a better approach to
technology. How might we frame that approach? Concepts of ethics,
responsibility and sustainability have all been widely discussed in relation to
technology. Given our systems view of technology, we find Integral Theory to
provide a simple prompt for considering its implications for society. It
invites us to question internal and external impacts of any system and its
embeddedness in wider systems. We are going to propose that humanity needs to
develop a more consciously integral approach to the development and
implementation of technology. Key to this concept is that technologies need to
be more internally and externally coherent. Internal coherence describes how their
design does not undermine the intention for their creation. External coherence describes
how their design does not undermine the social and political system that they
depend upon and which holds technologies and their protagonists to account, as
well as the wider environment upon which we all depend. As that social and
political system would be undermined by increasing inequality, so the effects
of technology on equality are important to its integral character.

To
aid future discussion, here we outline six initial characteristics of such
integral technologies.

1) Meaningful Purpose: The technology system is the result of people seeking to provide solutions to significant human needs and desires, rather than exploit people for personal gain. A positive example is the development of technologies for cataract operations that can be offered affordably for the poor. A negative example is the development of financial algorithms to front run stock market trading. 2) Stakeholder Accountability: A diversity of stakeholder opinions are solicited and used during technological development and implementation in an effort to avoid unexpected and negative externalities. A positive example is the cryptocurrency Faircoin for which everything is decided through an assembly; a negative example is bitcoin, in which computer mining stakeholders approve or veto new features based on their interests in maintaining power and profit. 3) Intended Safety: A technology does not cause harm when used in the intended ways, and those using it in unintended ways are made aware of known risks. A positive example is the indications and contra-indications on pharmaceutical labels; a negative example is when pesticides are marketed to be used just before the rice or grain harvesting to increase the yield, when that increases likelihood of toxic residues. 4) Optimal Availability: As much of the knowledge about the technology as safely possible is kept in the public domain, in order to reduce power differentials and maximise the benefits of the technology when other uses for the technology are found. A positive example is open source software which allows anyone with the right skills to deploy it for any purpose they choose; a negative example is the ingredients of cigarettes which are not published and make it harder for affected parties to build a case against the manufacturers.5) Avoiding Externalities: The way in which the artefacts of the technology affect the world around them are considered at an early stage and actively addressed. A positive example is the design of products to use a circular flow of materials from the Earth and back to the Earth. A negative example is how addiction to computer games may be contributing to obesity in the young while the games companies continue to pursue similar goals. 6) Managing Externalities: Subsystems for mitigating known negative externalities are developed at the same time as the technology and launched alongside it. A positive example is the system of regulations that mandate regular physical inspections of aircraft. A negative example is government migrating social service administration to the internet and not ensuring the poorest have the computer access, skills and support they need to use the new system.

Integral Blockchain and Post-Blockchain
Technologies

In the past
year Bitcoin has been criticised for the huge amounts of energy it consumes to
secure the blockchain. At the time of writing, some compare the consumption to that of Switzerland. Such
consumption is not a necessary feature of securing blockchains, but the initial
design choice of the inventor, with a system called “proof of work” being used
to issue new digital tokens. Other systems like Ethereum also use “proof of
work” and are similarly reliant on the computer-mining companies for whether
this climate-toxic code is replaced. Sadly the “proof of work” systems of these
leading technologies remain. Whereas some proponents of these technologies
argue that they are not so environmentally bad, due to servers being located
in cold places near renewable energy sources where energy is wasted, these are somewhat defensive post-hoc excuses. Clearly the environmental appropriateness of their
code was not one of the design parameters in the minds of the designers.

In the case
of Ethereum, the speculation in the price of Ether affects the price of Gas
which is used to process transactions. That means that as the price balloons, the
system loses its attractiveness for supporting activities that are high volume
and low cost. It also transfers funds from the many who would use the system to
the few who speculate on digital token value or own the computer-miners.

We
contend that systems which are not internally coherent will eventually
experience a disintegration of their intended or espoused purpose. In addition,
systems which are not externally coherent will eventually experience a
disintegration in their public support and their environmental basis. The
situation with Bitcoin is probably unsolvable, and its carbon footprint may
lead to significant regulator intervention in time. Ethereum has a wider set of
aims and so despite the continual delays in moving substantially away from Proof of Work, it may still be able to address the barriers to progress presented by
the short-term interests of those controlling the mining computers. However,
there is no doubt that this form of governance-by-hash-power is currently an
impediment to Ethereum becoming a more integral technology.

Given
these difficulties, we would like to point out some lesser-known projects,
which we regard as showing exemplary integral traits.

Providing
the same smart contract functionality as Ethereum, the new Yetta blockchain is
intended to be sustainable by design, with the low energy requirements of its
codebase being moderated further by automated rewards for those nodes using
renewable energy. It will also enable automated philanthropy to support the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Also
dissatisfied with how both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake consensus
algorithms reward those who already have the most, Faircoin developed a
‘proof-of-cooperation’ algorithm. More than that, there is an open assembly in
which the price of the coin is determined every month. This also is an attempt
to stabilise the price of the coin and deter speculators and the erratic price
movements which arise from their profiteering. They hold that a medium of
exchange is not supposed to be a vent from which value can be extracted from
the economy.

One
post-blockchain project, Holochain, is currently raising capital in an Initial
Coin Offering (ICO). The communications team has made many criticisms of
conventional blockchains. For example they have massive data redundancy built
in, which causes such a problem for scaling that the original intention of
these projects is now being compromised with such innovations as the Lightning
networks. Another being that since blockchain tokens are assets without
liabilities, they cannot have a stable value and thus constitute a poor medium
of exchange. Holo tokens therefore are issued as liabilities, which means they
have a purpose and a more stable value as long as the project lives.

“If someone tells you they’re building a “decentralized” system, and it
runs a consensus algorithm configured to give the people with wealth or power
more wealth and power, you may as well call bullshit and walk away. That is
what nobody seems willing to see about blockchain.” - Art Brock

Another
project called LocalPay, which we both work on, seeks to build a payment system
for existing solidarity economy networks. Its protagonists believe that
payments infrastructure is too critical and too political to be put only in the
hands of monopolists and rent-seekers. Instead, infrastructure which is held in
common, equally available to all, is the basis of a fairer society. They too,
understand money as credit, with somebody always underwriting its value.

While
none of these technologies is perfect, they are Integral Blockchains and
post-Blockchains as they seek to be internally and externally coherent. The
internal coherence of a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) means that the code and business model does not undermine the intention for their creation. External coherence
of a DLT means that their code and business model does not undermine the social and political
system that they depend upon and which holds the technologies and their
protagonists to account, as well as the wider environmental system upon which
we all depend. As that social and political system is undermined by increasing
inequality, so the effect of a DLT on equality is important to its integral
character. The four projects we highlighted all seek to integrate these
considerations into their codebase and business model, rather than bolt on
social or environmental considerations at a later time.

The Need for Technosophy

Concerns
about technology are growing. Warnings over unregulated nanotechnology and
artificial intelligence are now widespread. Warnings about the socially and
politically damaging effects of social media are growing. There’s
a wider problem with how technology is financed and implemented in a free
market system that means technology companies’ first duty is to deliver short
term profits to shareholders. This means many technologies are developed in a
hurry and much software is rushed to market before it is even finished. Many costs
and negative impacts are hard to pin directly on the manufacturers, and thus
sometimes nobody is accountable. The history of technology is one where
resistance to development from society leads to stabilisation around control
and access to technology. Recently we have had massive diffusion of new
electronics such as the mobile phone and social media, while the systems for
affected stakeholders to hold these technological systems to account do not yet
exist in the ways they have done in other sectors.

The
law is supposed to provide for unanticipated victims of technology and thus
incentivise providers to take precautions. This clearly isn’t working nearly
well enough perhaps because of the difficulty and expense of using the law and
perhaps because some consequences are very hard to prove to the satisfaction of
a jury. You may recall the decades of failing to prosecute tobacco companies
because the link between cigarettes and lung cancer could not be proven easily.So if the law were better to favour the victims, then
technology companies would do more to research and mitigate the secondary
effects.

We will not
be surprised if legal action will begin to be taken against platforms like
Facebook on behalf of millions of claimants for a range of concerns. That might
involve teenagers with clinical depression that has been correlated with social
media usage, or relatives of those who then committed suicide. Companies like
Facebook may point to their internal systems to address such risks, and whether
that is sufficient may be debated in court sometime in the future. Such legal
action may bankrupt some firms, or trigger changes. But to achieve a wider
shift to more integral technologies there will need to be a shift in philosophy that the
law alone will not be able to compel.

It
is time for a new era of wisdom in the way we make and deploy our tools. A move
from the knowledge of making things to the wisdom of making things – what we
call an era of “technosophy”. In the field of digital technologies, this means
the urgent development of new forms of deliberative governance, that uses both
soft and hard forms of regulation. The forms that this will take need to be
developed, but there are many examples from other sectors, where technical
standards are agreed internationally and incorporate into national law. That
would need to be done in ways that shape not stifle digital innovation, but
also enable stakeholders to alert regulators to risk-laden projects, such as
those using AI.

One
idea might be to introduce a requirement that before software technologies can
be deployed by large organisations (over 200 employees OR over 50 million USD
turnover, with subsidiaries analysed as part of their parent companies), the
software needs to be certified by an independent agency as not presenting a
risk to the public. Such certifications could be based on new multi-stakeholder
standards that would establish management systems for responsible software
development. Any change of the software code that would be deployed by a large
firm would need to be notified to the certifier of the underlying software
before release, with a self-declared risk assessment, based on guidance
provided by the standards organisation. Systems would need to be established for
determining whether particular software types and uses pose heightened risks
and require more oversight. For this approach to work it would have to be
worldwide, so as to avoid firms moving to jurisdictions that avoid these
regulations. Therefore, there is a rationale for an international treaty on software
safety to be negotiated rapidly with significant resources marshalled to help
these regulations to be appropriately implemented globally.

In
developing this idea, we know that many protagonists in software innovation may
be appalled. There is a strong anti-authoritarian mood amongst many computing
enthusiasts. But it is time to realise that some technology optimists are becoming
the new authoritarians, by enabling the diffusion of technologies that have wide
effects on people worldwide without them having any influence on that process
other than one role - if they can be a consumer. The challenge today is not
whether there should be more regulation of software development and deployment
or not, but how this should be done to reduce the risks and promote the widest
human benefit. We offer the concept of Integral Technology as one way of helping
that debate (and not as a template for regulation).

Unfortunately,
in the hype and the reality around Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) we
don’t see many ideas and initiatives thinking beyond the initial value
proposition and promised returns to investors. Some technologies like Bitcoin
seem to us to have betrayed all the aims of the founder and early adopters, yet
claims of internal and external incoherence are met with very questionable
objections by their near fanatical adherents. The various projects to
promote social or environmental good appear to be marginal to the main thrust
of this sector, and many add such concerns on top of existing code and governance
structures that are not aligned with the project goals. On the other hand, incumbent banks and their regulators
have often express dismissive or negative views of DLT technologies which
suggest they do not understand the problems with existing bank power and
practice, or the potential of DLTs. In some countries outright bans on DLTs or
cryptocurrencies are not the result of wide stakeholder consultation on
questions such as what and for whom systems of value exchange should be for.

Therefore,
we believe a technosophical approach to blockchain and cryptographic currencies
is currently absent and needs cultivation. It is why we urgently need
more international multi-stakeholder processes to deliberate on standards for
the future of software technologies in general. In the field of blockchain, one
event that may help is the United Nations’ half day high level discussions on blockchain, taking place at the World Investment Forum in October. Whether wider political and environmental conditions will give humanity the time and space to come together to develop and implement an appropriate regulatory environment for the future of software is currently unknown, but it is worth attempting.

--

We provide a background to blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation in
our free online course on Money and Society.

We produced this concept note on the IFLAS blog for rapid sharing. To
reference this Concept Note:

Bendell, J. and M. Slater (2018) Integral Technology in Blockchain,
Cryptocurrency and Beyond, Institute for Leadership and Sustainability,
University of Cumbria.

The image used in this post is a reworking of Escher's drawing that reflects the entanglement of author and authored. The image was reworked by Google AI project Deepmind, in its "dream" state, to produce the image you see. Deepmind is learning to identify the contents of images. This technology will be used to save lives, sell stuff and to kill with impunity. Reworking Escher's hands in a rather bizarre fashion reflects our perspective of "technological constructivism" and our belief that the potential of AI to soon achieve (with human action and inaction) autonomous general super intelligence (amongst other dilemma, particularly climate change) means that we need a "technosophical" approach that more wisely assesses and governs technology systems.

Monday, 12 February 2018

The first two IFLAS Open Lectures have now been finalised, and they will be...

On Tuesday 20th March, we welcome Ashley Cooper

Documenting climate change on the front line

Ashley Cooper has spent the last 14 years documenting the impacts of climate change and the rise of renewable energy on every continent on the planet, the only living photographer to have done so. This epic journey involved traveling to over 30 countries for a project that was self funded from im-age sales into newspapers and magazines. Along the way Ashley was threatened, intimidated, arrested and nearly fell through a snow bridge over a crevasse on the Greenland ice sheet. Following a successful crowd funding exercise, his award winning book was published, "Images From a Warming Planet”
This Open Lecture will focus not only on the worldwide journey documenting the effects of global warming, but also the difficult journey to get the book published.

Born in Sheffield and gaining a degree in Geography, Ashley spent time travelling in East Africa which inspired him to fundraise £14,000 for the British Leprosy Relief Association by climbing all the UK and Irish peaks over 3000ft - 313 in total. After a spell fundraising for NSPCC Cumbria, Ashley became a full time photographer in 2010.

In 2010 Ashley won the climate change category of the Environmental Photographer of the Year Competition, and for the last 25 years he has been a member of the Langdale/Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team, the busiest mountain rescue team in the UK.

Ashley will be with us in Ambleside at 5.30pm until around 7pm on Tuesday 20th March.

Then, in April, we are delighted to welcome Tim Clarke

What can we do together to save the
world’s forests?

The international community is fully aware of the numerous threats
to our forests. UN targets have been set to halt deforestation, but they are
not being met. Targets have also been set for reforestation. But these too are
not being met. The presentation will identify some of the issues involved and
ways in which institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, are trying
to tackle the problem. Tim will briefly present the way WeForest (https://www.weforest.org) is trying to make its own
contribution. Tim will conclude that everyone can be part of the
solution.

After gaining an MA in Zoology/Ecology Oxford
University, Tim worked for the European Commission in successive management
positions on Human Rights and EU Election Observation until 2004, when he
became an EU Ambassador/Head of Delegation to the African Union, then from 2007
to Tanzania and the East African Community. In 2011 he became Head of Division,
Crisis Management and Planning Directorate (CMPD) of the EU’s EEAS. Tim retired
from the EU in 2013.

Tim is, in no particualr order: Visiting Fellow at
the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); Chair of
the External Advisory Board of the Centre for Global Eco-Innovation (CGE),
Lancaster University Environment Centre ; Board member for several NGOs: the
Jane Goodall Institute , APOPO Foundation , ECOLISE ,GAIA Education; Co-founder
of Pro Intercultura; Senior Adviser of WWF, Search For Common Ground ,
Practical Action and KMG Ethiopia; Global Eco Villlage Ambassador; Strategic
Adviser, WeForest.

Tim will be joining us on Tuesday 17th April, again 5.30pm to approximately 7pm.

All IFLAS Open Lectures will take place in the Percival Lecture theatre on the Ambleside campus. Please register to attend either of these talks at iflas@cumbria.ac.uk

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Announcing an international conference in the heart of the Lake District

7th-9th September 2018, Ambleside Lake District Campus, University of Cumbria, UK.

Decision-makers need to be bold and agile to help their organisations and communities respond to rapid changes in their environments. Actions based on existing patterns of thought and behaviour will not suffice. What stimulates the necessary creativity to think afresh about contexts and choices? In this two-day event, we will explore methods available for leadership development.

Topics will include (but not be limited to): Creative writing as a method for personal leadership development, poetry as an aid for exploring emotions, the visual and performing arts as a means of enabling new ideas, storytelling as a method for leadership communications, physical play as a means of reducing inhibitions, and outdoor activities as opportunities for deepening insight. We will experience such methods and discuss them in the context of both classical and contemporary theories on the role of creativity and arts in personal and social change. For inspiration we will draw on the creative heritage of the cultural landscape of the English Lake District, now recognised by UNESCO.

The conference is intended for academics, practitioners, postgraduate students and anyone else interested in the conference theme. The aim is to host contributions that break narrow disciplinary boundaries. Alongside conventional presentation formats, such as keynotes, paper and poster sessions and workshops, there will be contributions that take a more embodied and interactive approach. An optional outdoor activity will also be offered. We anticipate lively debate about the structure and form of academic learning, and the responsibility of higher education to widen horizons rather than narrow them.

The conference takes place in a historic campus in the heart of a National Park and UNESCO world heritage site, nestled in amongst beautiful hills and lakes that have attracted hikers and writers to the Lake District for centuries. On the Saturday, a selection of short activities outside the conference venue will be offered.

Professor Jonathan Gosling and Professor Richard Little will give keynotes. The conference is co-chaired by Professor Jem Bendell (University of Cumbria), Charlotte Van Bulow (Crossfields Institute) and Professor Marcelo da Veiga (Alanus). The event starts at 4pm on Friday 7th September and runs to 5pm on 8th, with an optional day of self-organised activities on Sunday 9th.

Call for papers

Contributions are invited from academics, practitioners and postgraduate students. The organisers would particularly like to encourage contributions that break narrow disciplinary boundaries. Contributions may take one of the following formats:

1. Research Presentation

This is a standard research presentation of 15 minutes maximum followed by 5 minutes for discussion. Research presentations must be accompanied by full submitted articles (3000 to 8000 words) which will be available on the conference website from before the event. Abstracts will be peer reviewed and some may be asked to submit a poster and pitch instead.

2. Poster & Pitch

An A0 poster plus a three-minute pitch in a themed room followed by time for the audience to interact with individual presenters. These sessions attract a special interest audience and provide great networking opportunities. Poster & pitch may focus on research or practice exchange.

3. Practice Exchange

This is a presentation or delivery of a practice in leadership development, broadly defined. Sessions may be either 20 or 40 minutes long.

Submissions

The submission of proposals will be in the form of an abstract of 400 words (max) excluding references. You should include a list of up to five key references to accompany your abstract. You should also indicate which format you are proposing (paper, poster, practice) and include a short personal biography.

There is no participation fee for the conference, but there will be a charge for food and drink. Key is to submit your ideas for session or papers before our January 30th deadline (as above). Advanced priority registration begins on November 1st 2017. General registration begins on March 1st 2018. Both from here.

Accommodation

Accommodation is available from the University at £35 pounds per night (ensuite, not including breakfast) and can be reserved directly via kirsty.mills@cumbria.ac.uk.

The Context for the Conference

The Poetics of Leadership conference follows on in a series of Collaborative Research Conferences organised by the partners in previous years. Since 2013, Crossfields Institute have co-organised a series of conferences in collaboration with the Institute for Philosophy and Aesthetics at Alanus University (Bonn, Germany). For each conference, a third partner has also been invited in to co-design, co-organise and co-host the conference. Past conferences were organised with the University of Kent and the University of Gloucestershire. The most recent was on Leadership, Ethics and Working with Unknowing (10th-11th March 2017) with University of the West of England’s Leadership Centre (Bristol Business School). The event was attended by scholars in ethics, organisation studies, leadership education and related fields; practitioners, executives, managers and students from a range of universities and institutions. The conference attracted attention and participation from an international contingent of interested scholars: www.crossfieldsinstitute.com/higher-education-research/research-conferences

Both Alanus University and Crossfields Institute are interested in re-thinking higher education and exploring ways that academic learning can serve the real cultural and spiritual needs of our time, as well as the purely economic. Part of the aim with these conferences is to make links with institutions, departments and individuals who share this interest. Each conference is focused on a specific theme, but the aim is to invite contributions that break narrow disciplinary boundaries.

For the current conference, Crossfields Institute and Alanus University have collaborated with The Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at Cumbria University. IFLAS has co-organised research conferences on leadership and wellbeing for the past years with Brathay Trust, including a major international festival in 2015. www.leadingwell.org Working with Crossfields and Alanus University for a joint conference in 2018 is a natural combination of expertise and networks.

Wednesday, 18 October 2017

Howard Johns

Climate Change: Our biggest
challenge is our biggest opportunity

The last in the Autumn season of free IFLAS Open Lectures will be once again held in the Percival Lecture Theatre on the Ambleside campus.

Rydal Road, Ambleside, LA22 9BB

Tuesday 7th November, 5.30pm to 7pm

We are at a unique inflection
point in human history, the reality of climate change has moved beyond
debate and is in evidence in our daily lives. For much of society business
carries on as usual, but huge changes are underway. Renewable energy is
becoming the cheapest form of energy in many parts of the world, and the
opportunity is here to create a rapid transition to a low carbon future.

We will look briefly at
the reality we are facing in our changing climate, the massive shift
underway in the energy and transport sectors and the opportunities for local
action to create climate friendly solutions and viable businesses in every
community.

Howard
Johns works for a community-owned renewable energy revolution. He has founded
and led an award winning solar business, a pioneering community-owned energy
company and written a guide book to help others to do the same. He has
campaigned on energy and climate issues from in treehouses and in parliament –
and everywhere in between.

Author
of Energy
Revolution – Your guide to repowering the energy system, Howard
is an energy engineer, entrepreneur, business leader and activist. Following
his degree in energy technology and environment, he was a protested against,
among other things, the digging of an open cast coal mine, and was evicted from
a tree in the process.

Moving on from saying no to the problems, Howard set
about building solutions, eventually founding a national solar energy company,
and a locally owned renewable energy co-operative – the first one in the UK to
build a solar energy project with a community share offer. At the same time he
chaired the trade body representing the UK solar industry, finding himself
campaigning on energy policy again in the process.

Howard
is convinced we have all the technology and money we need to implement the
right climate and energy solutions. Now it is time for lots of people to get
involved in making it happen. He still works with his local community energy
company Ovesco – to scale this project and increase its
impact. He is also managing director of a business that manages hundreds of
megawatts of solar power stations around the UK, as well as chairman of the
positive climate change charity 10:10.